


Interstitial

by spemhabemus



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spemhabemus/pseuds/spemhabemus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John reflects back on his relationship with Elizabeth.  A behind-the-scenes look at several episodes with an AU canon romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interstitial

The raw part of me will never go away.

Even now, in 2017, on Earth, at a quiet little park where we’re finally holding Elizabeth’s memorial ceremony after ten years.

The part of me that can never forgive myself or move on is tucked safely away in a box I never open.  

When I get home, I do allow myself to open the 500-page monstrosity Rodney wrote about Elizabeth when he was on the brink of ascension.  I haven’t been able to read more than a few sentences of it since we lost her.  I didn’t want to spend too much time facing the past.

But some parts are noticeably missing.

I begin typing, filling in the blanks, to make Elizabeth’s story complete.

 

*

Elizabeth was not at breakfast the first morning on the  Daedalus following our trip to Earth, where I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.  We were both up late the night before, talking, but usually she was up even earlier than I was.  I didn’t get worried until later that afternoon - whatever afternoon is in hyperspace - when I hadn’t seen her anywhere.

I rang her doorbell and stood in front of her quarters for a few minutes, wondering if I hadn’t remembered which room she was staying in.  I knocked softly and called her name.  She appeared at the door a few minutes later, her face pale.

“You feeling all right?” I asked.

“Um...yes, I’m fine.  Was there something you wanted?” she asked, sweeping her hair out of her eyes.

I leaned against her doorway, unable to help looking into her quarters, her bed sheets rumpled as if she had just climbed out of them.  “You haven’t eaten today, have you?”

“No.  I’m not hungry.  John,” she said, turning back toward her bed, “I just need to sort some things out.”

I stayed in her doorway as she sat down on her bed and stared at the wall.

“Well, if you ever need to talk, I’m a great listener,” I said.

“I appreciate that.”  Her expression was blank.

As I turned away, I realized how much I hurt when she was hurting.

 

*

I don’t know exactly what those bastard replicators did to Elizabeth the first time we met them, but in order for her to show her weakness, I knew it had to be pretty bad.  She was physically ill after Niam got into her head, and even though she pretended to be okay, I hung around her after we got back to Atlantis and Carson checked her out.

She went to her quarters for a few hours, but I found her on the balcony at sunset, sipping a cup of tea, and told her the information McKay had relayed to me about the replicators...not that he had found anything useful in the database.

“Well, we beat them this time.  Maybe we scared them off.”  She smiled weakly.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Maybe.”

She took another sip of tea.

“Feeling better?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said, and then, looking out at the water, “not really.”

“Rough day, huh.”

“I’ve never had a headache so bad in my life.  Carson says the peppermint tea should help with the nausea...but I’m not a big fan of herbal teas, so I don’t know if it’s making it worse.”  She laughed drily.

“Are you sure they didn’t do anything weird to you?” I asked.  “The rest of us felt better as soon as they removed their hands from our heads.”  I shuddered at the mental image.

“Carson said I just needed to sleep...which I did.  I finally followed doctor’s orders.”  She leaned on the balcony, tilting her head in the direction of the wind.  “I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Yeah, hope so.”  I put my hands in my pocket, not knowing what to say.  Some instinct made me want to watch over her, or make her go back to the infirmary.  I was sure she would refuse.  So I just stood there awkwardly.

“Well,” said Elizabeth, “I have lots of work to catch up on.”  She walked past me back into her office, and I followed her.

“Just take care of yourself,” I said as I left.

I didn’t go far, though.  I was exhausted, but every hour or so I walked by Elizabeth’s office, just to make sure she was okay.  I tried to tell myself to stop being paranoid, but the third time I went to check on her, her head was on her desk.

I walked up to her slowly, thinking she had just fallen asleep, until I saw the stack of papers that had fallen from her hand onto the floor.  

“Elizabeth,” I whispered, shaking her shoulder.  “Wake up.”

She didn’t move.

I shook her harder, and then propped her up in her chair.  She was breathing, but her eyes were closed.  Unless she had taken some heavy drugs, she should have been awake.

“Elizabeth!” I yelled this time, but only waited a few seconds until I called for a medical team.

_I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight_ , I thought as they wheeled her to the infirmary.

And I didn’t let her out of my sight again until the nanites had been deactivated and she finally woke up.

 

*

I was as worried as Rodney and Carson that Elizabeth hadn’t answered any of my e-mails or calls.  Granted, I hadn’t given her much to answer.  I had sent her a few e-mails asking how she was settling in, and left her a few voicemails asking if she wanted to go to dinner.  Not like a date.  But I’m not sure if I made that clear.

I did something a little shady and called her from the gate room at the SGC one late night, so her phone would pick up NORAD’s number.  I wasn’t sure why, but she had been on my mind lately.  Maybe because she was one of the few people on this planet that I truly related to - that felt weird to think about.  

“Elizabeth Weir.”  Her voice sent me scrambling for the nearest chair.  I had not anticipated my reaction.

“Elizabeth,” I said, my heart pounding in my ears.

“Who is this?”

“It’s John Sheppard.  Remember me?”  I twirled the chair around to see if anyone else was in the immediate area.

I heard Elizabeth sigh on the other end.  “I’m sorry, I thought you were…”

“No, it’s all right,” I said.  “I’m just getting off work, and I wanted to see if you were up for hanging out, drinking a beer or two.”

“Oh.”  For a second, I thought she was going to hang up on me.  The disappointment in her voice traveled across the line.  “John, you know it’s one in the morning, right?”

“And you don’t sound like you’ve slept at all,” I pointed out.

“I haven’t,” she said.

“So...beer?” I asked.  “I can be at your place in twenty minutes.”

“You really have nothing better to do right now?”

“Well, like you said, it’s one in the morning, and most normal people are asleep.”

“And you know where I live.”

“I have my sources.”

“Just bring something with more than 5% alcohol content.”

“You got a deal.”

 

I showed up at Elizabeth’s door with two packs of high-alcohol beer and some sandwiches I had managed to scrounge up at a gas station.  I normally don’t notice what women wear, as I’m usually busy looking at their...eyes, but she happened to be wearing a very form-fitting pair of jeans and a camisole that was also very form-fitting, under a sweater.

“Wow,” I said.  “I mean...hi.”

She closed the door behind me and I stepped into her apartment.  It was small, but cosy, resembling a miniature version of her office in Atlantis.  Probably because she had transported most of the trinkets in her office to her new abode.  I even recognized the vase I had given her on her birthday the first year of the expedition.

“Nice place,” I remarked, setting down the beer and sandwiches on her coffee table as she set out paper plates and napkins.

I sat on her couch and she sat on a chair she had pulled up.  I cracked open the beers and handed her one.  “Cheers,” I said.

“Cheers,” she repeated, and took a long sip.

We sat there sipping the beers, leaving the sandwiches untouched, until we had each finished our first bottle and were working on our second.  After these several minutes of silence, Elizabeth finally said, “So tell me why you’re really here.”

I froze, the bottle hovering halfway between the table and my mouth.  “Why do you think?” I asked.

“Because you’re very unhappy,” she mused.  The alcohol had slowed her voice down dramatically.

I tore the plastic off one of the sandwiches and ripped off a corner.  “Actually, that’s nowhere close to the truth.”

“Oh.  I must be talking about myself again.”  

“I came to check on you.  We’re all worried about you,” I said.  “But you know that, because you won’t talk to Rodney or Carson, either.”

Elizabeth set down her beer and leaned back in her chair.  “I’m sorry.  It hasn’t even been a week.  I’m still adjusting.”

“Looking for a job?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“It didn’t take you this long to adjust to Atlantis,” I said.

“When you expect a place to be alien, it’s easier to find it familiar than finding a familiar place alien,” she replied.

“Huh,” I said.  “Haven’t really thought about it like that.”

“You can thank my anthropology background for that.”  Elizabeth reached for her third bottle of beer.

“Whoa,” I said, “I didn’t expect to be out-drunk tonight.”

“You’re not stopping already?”  She raised her eyebrow slyly.

“Well.”  I eyed my half-eaten sandwich.  “Now that I’ve eaten, my tolerance has probably gone up.”  I chugged the rest of my beer and opened another one.  “Here’s to hangovers.”

We clinked our bottles together.

Jesus, that beer was strong.

At one point the sun was coming up and I knew I had to be at work within two or three hours, but hadn’t really registered the passing of time.  Our sandwich wrappers and two bags of chips were strewn on the coffee table, along with one empty and one half-full bottle of cheap white wine Elizabeth had in her refrigerator.  And somehow she was sitting right next to me now.

“Shit, I have to go to work,” I said.  “What time is it?”

Elizabeth’s arm was propped on the back of her couch, holding up her head.  She craned her neck to look at a clock on her wall, which was directly in front of me, but which I couldn’t read.  “Six thirty-four.”

“Oh, wow.”  I hoisted myself off the couch, trying with all my might not to stumble.  “I really have to go to work.”

“Yeah, you might want to get that mayonnaise off your shirt first,” Elizabeth said before burying her head in the crook of her arm.

I looked down at the stain on my shirt and then made my way to her kitchen sink, using the wall to brace me.  I splashed my face with water before wetting a paper towel and hoping the stain hadn’t set yet.  “This is not good,” I said.

“I can wash it,” Elizabeth offered.  “How long until you have to be at work?”

“An hour and a half.”

It hadn’t occurred to me, as Elizabeth walked over to me and removed my shirt, having me lift up my arms like some kid in a Tide commercial, that I probably had enough time to run home and change.  Or I could have just worn my jacket and changed at work.  But I was still drunk at this time.

She told me she would be right back and walked in an astoundingly straight line to take my shirt to the laundry room.

While she was gone, I took the opportunity to use her bathroom and attempt to groom myself into a somewhat put-together mode.

“Oh, now you don’t have a shirt,” Elizabeth said, closing the door behind her upon her return.

“It appears I don’t,” I said.

She flashed me a crooked smile as she walked over to me and touched my chest.

The second her fingers made contact with me, I grabbed her arms and kissed her.

“Oh, God,” I said, as I pulled away.  “I’m so sorry-”

But she was already kissing me back.

We staggered to her couch, and in the middle of our sloppy, high school-esque make-out session, I suddenly became sober.

“I have to leave,” I said, picking up my jacket off the floor and collecting my stuff that was strewn around her apartment.

Elizabeth sat up.  “What about your shirt?”

“I’ll come back for it.  Or whatever,” I said.

“No.”  Elizabeth had cleared the space between me and the door in seconds and put her arm up to block me.  “I’ll come over to your place.  Tonight?”

“You know where I live?” I asked.

“I have my sources.”

  
  


*

I received an e-mail from Elizabeth at work, cordially stating she was looking forward to our “meeting” tonight at 8:00.

I had a little under an hour after I got home to shave, make myself smell good, and clean up.  I felt an odd mixture of sheer exhaustion and fluttering excitement.  I had managed not to think of Elizabeth most of the day, and suddenly the reality set in that I was probably about to begin an affair with my former boss.  

I didn’t have much time to think about it, because she was at my door.  She handed me my shirt, I hung her jacket over the back of her chair, and gave her a tour of my place.  Then we stood in the middle of my apartment, looking at each other.

“Do you want anything to eat?” I asked.

“No,” she said.  “Do you want to talk about this morning?”

“No,” I said.

She stroked my jaw and kissed me.  This time, her kisses were deliberate, deep.  Difficult to stop.

“Arms up,” she moaned into my lips.

I put my arms in the air, and she teased off my shirt.

We stripped as I backed her toward the bed, looking each other in the eyes while we deliberately peeled off each layer of clothing, until we were down to our underwear.  I sat on the bed and she climbed onto my lap, facing me, and I un-hooked her bra, kissing her chest.  She moved her lips over my neck and we made our way to each other’s lips again, each kiss longer than the last.  Her feet gripped my hips as we rocked back and forth, our mouths clashing together in deep kisses.  Electricity ricocheted off of my every nerve.  My body sang each time I ground into her.  I felt like I was floating.

She slipped off my lap and onto the bed, making me ache so much I whimpered.  She laughed and teased my underwear off, then twined my dog tags around her fingers and pulled me down on top of her.

I slid my lips over her ear and whispered her name.  We fed off each other, slipping through one another like ribbons, sharing...slow.  Slow.

Fast was for the first girl I ever screwed in the back of my first junker.  Fast was for going through the motions with a wife who had grown emotionally distant.  Fast was for off-world quickies with strange locals when I might die any minute.

Slow was for now.  Slow was for her.  Slow was mind-blowing sex that was worth the wait.

Each time she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, smiling silently in pleasure, my stomach jumped into my throat.  God, it was  _Elizabeth _.   __

When it was over...achingly over, collapsingly over, like a ten-mile run in the rain and a good shower and stuffing your face and literally falling into bed over...she looked at me.  She hadn’t said a word the whole time, and when she looked at me, her eyes said everything.

I took her hand and looked back at her.  I could feel my smile stretch my face into the corners of my eyes, and I couldn’t contain it.

“You are wonderful,” I panted.

She closed her eyes, and I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me.

We slept.  I didn’t dream.  I didn’t have to.

 

The next morning we practically attacked each other in the shower.  When we finally wrestled into clothes, panting, hair dripping, unable to stop grinning at each other high on endorphins, I somehow found the energy to make breakfast sandwiches, or an approximation thereof.

“Best sex ever, hands down,” I said, stuffing a piece of crust in my mouth.

“John Sheppard.  I’m flattered.”  Elizabeth batted her eyes at me and took a sip of my orange juice.

I put my hand over hers as she set the glass back down.  “Get your own,” I growled, biting her lip.

“We should be careful,” Elizabeth cautioned, “unless we plan on staying in all day.”

“Sure.”  I shrugged.  “Why not?”

The day was actually quite fulfilling.  We grocery shopped at a little market across the street and made lunch and dinner together.  We rented a movie on Pay-Per-View.  We talked about subjects we had never broached before.  And of course, there was more sex.  And more shower sex.

“Taking a shower is going to give me some kind of Pavlovian response from now on,” I remarked.  I lathered soap onto Elizabeth’s nose and then kissed it away.

“You should consider getting to know your right hand better, then,” she said.

“Damn,” I said.  “I like this side of you.  Don’t leave.”

“I have to, John,” she sighed, and stepped out of the shower.

“Yeah, I know.”  I turned off the water and followed her into the bedroom.

“Sometimes I just need to be alone.  I should clean my apartment.  Or something.”  She started getting dressed.

“I know you’re hurting,” I said.

Elizabeth nodded, her back to me.  “Every day I woke up in Atlantis, I fell more in love with the city...I know it sounds strange, but...it’s like she...it...revealed another piece of itself to me each day.  And I never got to find out everything it wanted to tell me.”

I put my arms around her waist and kissed her.  “We’ll go back.”

She nodded again.  “Right.”

“I mean it,” I said, tilting her chin toward me.  “I want you to be happy.”

She smiled through her closed lips.  “The first time I went to a grocery store, I was so overwhelmed at all the choices.  I had no idea what brand of, of milk to buy, not to mention cereal, bread...I’ve been living off take-away.”  She chuckled.  “It’s like Earth is the alien planet now.”

“See?  You get to explore a new culture again,” I teased.

“Reverse culture shock.”  Elizabeth shook her head.  “I’ve read about it several times, but I wasn’t quite sure it existed until I experienced it.  It’s the sensation of changing and expecting Earth to change, and then discovering nothing has, and no one understands your new perspective.”

“I do,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed.  “Thank you.”

 

*

The five weeks we spent together back on Earth flew by so quickly, yet nearly insignificant strands of those days are imprinted into my memory.  Sometimes, when I’m alone, one image will appear in my mind, shredding my heart.

I can see her planting basil in her window box.  Waking up to find her head on my chest.  Sitting across from me at a picnic table when we snuck up to Denver one weekend, threading a flower through her teeth.  Freckles popping out on her nose when she looked out the window at sunset.

I had never hurt so much from loving someone.  I don’t know if somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this couldn’t be forever, or if I fed off the pain and helplessness I knew she was feeling.  The sensation of walking through a void, blindly feeling your way along, that sometimes crept into the back of my mind.  Even though I still traveled through the Stargate and I still saw Rodney and Carson sometimes, I often felt as if I were in a parallel universe, and nothing was quite right.  It still wasn’t Atlantis.

Sometimes, I let the emotions get to me too much, and I held her a little too hard, and asked her to stay the night even though I had to get up before sunrise, and I knew that made her uncomfortable, but I was selfish and did it anyway.

One day, as we sat on my couch and she stared at TV with the blank expression that masked her feelings, I pulled her close to me and whispered, “I love you,” meaning it for the first time in my life, and she looked at me for one moment and then her eyes glazed over again and she pretended to be interested in the show.

She broke me over and over.  But sometimes she was the only thing holding me together.

 

*

After we had destroyed all the replicators, we had a few days to cool down and to make sure the city was functional again.  This was the least amount of action I had ever experienced in Atlantis.  Almost peaceful.

That first night I rang Elizabeth’s doorbell.

I could see that she had been busy arranging her room.  We hadn’t brought much back with us, so she must have found the various decorations in storage somewhere.

“So, we’re back,” I said.

“Yes.  Thank God.”  Elizabeth cleared a box off a seat and motioned for me to sit down.  “So, did you want to talk to me about something?”  She walked over to her bed and started arranging the blankets.  I followed her.

“What do you mean?” I asked.  “I just wanted to see you, hang out, you know, the usual.”

She turned around to face me.  Her eyes were so piercing and distant, so unlike the soft looks she had given me on Earth.  “We can’t do this anymore, John.”

I knew this conversation was coming, but I had hoped that we could ease into it gradually, at least take the few days when no other personnel were around to be with each other.  “Yeah,” I said, “about that.”

She placed her arms lightly on my shoulders.  “We never made a commitment to anything.  We were just doing this because we didn’t have a conflict of interest.”

“Which means we would still be ‘doing this’ if we were still back on Earth.  So what’s changed?” I asked.  “I put my job on the line to save the city.  I should have been fired three times over in the last day.  I doubt us being in a relationship is going to put much more of a dent in my record.”

She bristled and walked to the other side of her bed.  “We were never in a relationship.”

I tried not to laugh.  “Oh.  It was just sex, then.”

“No.  John, stop, I’m not going to engage you.”  She turned away from me.

“You know, I think you at least owe me an acknowledgment of the fact that I said I’m  _in love_ with you.”  I circled her bed and put my face close to hers.  She turned away, but I didn’t move.  “I guess you weren’t aware that I only say that when I really, really mean it and I did not consider our little affair just some fling.  It actually meant something to me.  It meant a lot to me.  You were my anchor.  And you’re trying to tell me we should just throw it out the window and pretend it never happened.”

“Have I ever won an argument with you?” she shouted.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Every time I’ve ever tried to put my foot down, you’ve disarmed me.  You make it seem like I have a choice, but I really don’t, do I?  In the end, you’re always the one calling the shots.  And you know it.”  She crossed her arms and sat down on her bed.  “I mean it this time.  I am not going to sacrifice all the trust I’ve built.  I’m not going to risk both our careers.”

“This is bullshit, and  _you_ know it,” I snarled.

“Don’t you understand this is not up for debate?  I’ve already made my decision.  Stop arguing for the sake of arguing and respect my decision, John.”  Her voice was dangerously low.  She was about to put up a wall.  This was how it always ended.  I had to duck in while I had an opening.  

“Listen,” I said, licking my lips, trying as hard as I could to keep my tone even.  “Just because we don’t put a label on it doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there.”

“You’re right.”  She raised her head to meet my eyes.  “But that doesn’t mean we have to act on them.”

“How the hell am I going to not act on the feelings I have for you when they’ve been the basis of every goddamn choice I’ve made for the last two years?” I asked.  “It’s already too late.  We’re in a relationship.  Call it what you want, but that’s what it is.”

“Eventually,” she whispered, “the feelings will go away.  But you have to want them to.”

“And what if I don’t?  What if I want to be a human being who has the capacity to love another human being instead of the robot you pretend to be?”

“I’m just doing what I have to do, John.”  Elizabeth crossed her arms more firmly.  She stared out the window.

I was losing this argument, and by my own doing.

“I know that’s not the way you really feel, Elizabeth,” I said, “and I know that because you’re not some cold-hearted person who’s above her feelings or whatever the hell.  I know that because you have one of the warmest, kindest hearts I’ve ever come across, and you can’t...fucking...resist me.”  

“Stop trying to tell me how I feel,” Elizabeth said, her teeth clenched, “and get out of my room.  Now.”

“Fine,” I said.  

I walked out of her room, willing myself not to kick the door after it closed behind me.

I sat on my own bed, shaking.  I tried to be angry.  I tried to picture her staring out the window, trying to push her feelings aside like I knew she was doing, and convince myself that maybe she was devoid of emotions and never cared about me in the first place.  She played the part so well, I almost believed it.  But no.  She was just strong.  Too damn strong for me to break down.  

She always looked beyond the moment.  She could see the full picture, and was comfortable watching it from the outside as everything played out, and still having control over every element of it.  I wished I could do that.  To see the domino effect of every possible move.  I tried to do what was right in the moment.  She knew what was right for the next thousand moments.

Too bad neither of us could see how it would all end.

 

*

“You’re going to be okay, Elizabeth,” I said, and I knew she could tell from the tone of my voice, and I could tell by the expression on her face, that neither of us believed it.

“Well,” she said, hopping off the exam table, “I should get dressed.”

Instead of heading toward my quarters, I took her face in my hands, and kissed her lips, then her forehead, then her cheeks, and her lips again.  For one brief moment, she kissed me back, and then she placed her hand on my chest, pushing me away, although not as hard as she could have.

“Someone might see us,” she hissed.

“God, Elizabeth, after all that I just need to know you’re alive,” I said.

“I’m right here, John.”

I searched her face.  Stoic.  But the corner of her lip twitched ever so slightly.  I knew, somehow, that this was our last chance.  That I would never be this close to her again.  I felt more vulnerable than I usually allowed myself to feel, because she was the one, and she was slipping through my fingers, and dammit, it just hurt.

“Please,” I begged, twining my hands through her hair, my lips just inches from hers, “promise me you’ll fight.”

“I’ll fight,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and kissed me.

I ran my hands over her body, trying to memorize her again and again.  It had been almost a year since I had felt her in my arms.  “I love you so much,” I said, nuzzling her neck.

I didn’t care how many times she refused to say it back.  I would keep saying it.

 

*

_She did it.  She’s fighting.  She’s fighting with all her strength._

Those words kept echoing in my head as I uploaded the Wraith kill directive into the Replicators’ base code in the core room, as Ronon paced, his anti-Replicator weapon at the ready.  Elizabeth loved getting off-world.  And this was her most important mission.  She was in hand-to-hand - or mind-to-mind? - combat with our most dangerous enemy.

I tried to comfort myself with these thoughts as I waited for the program to upload.  I tried not to think about what I wanted, for Elizabeth to be safe in the infirmary, nanites repairing her own cells, while I risked my life on the Replicator home world.  No, this is what she wanted.  To protect her city and her people.  Nothing could stop her from doing that.

McKay shouted that the program was done uploading, and as I started to unplug the tablet, a string of Roman letters flashed below the Ancient code.

I LOVE YOU J.

My arms prickled with goosebumps.  It had to be - but when had she -

I didn’t have time to think.  I yanked the tablet free and Ronon and I ran for our lives.

But I could almost hear her voice in my head as I ran.

I could hear the words she had never spoken, as if she were saying them right into my ear.

“I love you, John.”

_That is an order._

 

*

I retired to my quarters early that night, my head aching so badly I could barely think, which I was thankful for because I didn’t want to think.  At all.  Every time I tried to turn off the light to sleep, visions I didn’t want to see and couldn’t blink away flooded my head.  I tried to read, but the words blurred together.  I tried to listen to music, but any song, no matter how upbeat, brought a lump to my throat.

I couldn’t stay there, trying to convince myself that a piece of time hadn’t just stopped forever, that I could never move forward with her again, that the rest of my existence would be without her.

I walked to her office and stood there in the darkness, not knowing what to do next, not knowing what could possibly even matter.

I could hear the ocean.  The new ocean, rippled by five moons that she would never see.

_I think I got used to to falling asleep to the sound of the ocean._

Her voice.  I had already almost forgotten the exact timbre with which she spoke.  The lilt of her words.  I could never get that back.

_She deserves to be remembered._

_SHUT UP._

_You can’t change what happened._

_John Sheppard, are you defending my honor?_

_Shut up, you fucking idiot, just shut up for today and eventually this pain in your chest that’s about to rip your heart out will go away and you won’t feel anything anymore.  Isn’t that what you want?  Fuck everyone, stop feeling sorry for yourself and man up._

Somehow I was sitting on the floor with my hands over my face.  I jumped up before anyone could see me.

_Oh God, get this under control, you bastard._

I raked my hands through my hair.  I needed something to bite down on, something to destroy.  I would just tear this room apart, rip open the boxes Teyla had half-packed and take everything that reminded me of her, then throw the rest into the ocean.  If she couldn’t have it, nobody could.  I placed my palms on her desk and leaned forward, sputtering curses.

“John.”

I almost jumped at the voice.  I turned around as Rodney waved on the lights.  He had spoken so softly, I had no idea he was the one standing there.

“Hi,” I said, biting my lip.

“Are you...well, ah, are you okay?  I know none of us is really okay, but, ah, I was just...I wanted to check on you.”

“Couldn’t sleep either?” I asked.

“No.  Not so much.”  Rodney placed his hand between my shoulders.  I straightened my back as much as I could, flexing my neck to loosen the tension.

“You checking on everyone to see if they’re in one piece?” I asked gruffly.

“No.  Just you.  You seemed...I don’t know.  Not yourself,” he said.

I breathed a shuddering sigh.  “You don’t need to take care of me, Rodney.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I know you two were close.  I just thought…”

“You don’t even know,” I growled, lowering myself to the floor.

The lump in my throat had grown so large it hurt to even breathe.  I was about to lose it.  I never lost it.  I had watched my friends’ helicopters get shot down...I had witnessed my subordinates get the life sucked out of them by the Wraith...I had seen fates worse than death and had been able to walk away without letting myself feel much more than a hint of regret...but now…

“Goddammit,” I said as I started sobbing like a five-year-old who had been denied an ice cream cone.

Rodney looked at me with a mixture of sympathy and shock.

“Just don’t say anything, McKay,” I whimpered, futilely wiping my face with the back of my arm.  I started crying again, trying to suppress the moans escaping my throat, but it was too fucking much.

“Of course not,” he said in that alarmingly quiet voice.  “If I can do anything…”

I got my crying under control enough to speak evenly.  “We were lovers.”

Rodney raised his head.  “What?”

“We were having an affair, I was completely in love with her.”  I ran my hands over my eyes, making colors bloom in the darkness.

“Oh.  Wow,” he said.  “Really?”

“I don’t know, yeah,” I said.  “Just when we were on Earth...mostly...she wanted to end it once we got back.”

“God, John, I’m so sorry.  I had no idea.”

“You don’t have to be the one who’s sorry.  You’re not the one who ruined everything,” I replied.  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, finally done crying, for now.

“I insisted she come with us.  I wanted to upload the directive into the Replicators’ base code.  I didn’t stop her from leaving the jumper.”  Rodney’s voice waivered as if he were about to cry, too.  Jesus.

“I went along with your plan.  I insisted on uploading the program instead of you.  I didn’t try hard enough to get her back.  _I left one of our own behind _.”  I buried my head in my hands, not even having the strength to break down again. __

“Do you want to be alone?” Rodney asked, heading for the door.

I stood up.  “Not particularly.”  My legs trembled in the way they did when I was so anxious I just had to do something.  Usually finding someone to stick fight helped, but I doubted Rodney would be up for that.  “You want to go for a run?  A jog?  Speed walk?” I tried to joke.

“I...sure?” Rodney replied.

I slapped him on the back.  “I’ll meet you at the pier in ten.”

“Oh, you...you were serious.  Okay. Well, uh, I’ll just go change, then.”

We jogged very slowly.  The night was cooler than Lantea’s.  The breeze slapping my shirt against my skin felt good.  Rodney managed to keep up pretty well, even talking to me about the petty nothingness I needed to talk about to clear my head and want to throw myself into the ocean a tiny bit less.  I led him around for half an hour before I could tell he was about to collapse.

“Thanks for that,” I told him as we both headed back to our quarters.

“Any time,” he panted.

The next morning, Rodney rang my doorbell.  I climbed out of bed and let him in.

He held out a USB stick.  “Almost forgot about this.  I think you might want to see it.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”  Then he turned away.

I opened my laptop and plugged in the USB stick.

Just as the document loaded, the sun came up, and I walked toward the window so I could watch the clouds disappear from the sky.


End file.
